Lost: One F-15E Strike Eagle. Fortunately, the crew ejected safely and were recovered.
Spent: Over $100,000,000 in missiles alone. That’s probably a decent way to measure it since resources like food and fuel would have been consumed and military personnel would have continued drawing pay, maybe even at combat rates, even if we had not launched Operation Odyssey Dawn.
Our third day of UN-authorized military operations begins shortly. It’s about time for Congress to start debating this; I concede that as a functional matter, the President can start wars and Congress can do little about what the President has done after the fact. It’s disappointing, though, that the President could not have asked Congress for some authority beforehand — while the UN approached the subject with deliberation, Congress could have been doing the same and a Constitutional issue could have been bypassed. At least the UK and France are having post facto Parliamentary debates about it, which is more than I can say for our Congress at the moment.
That’s water under the bridge now, too.
This is frustrating. I just paid my income tax. I guess they already spent it all.
I feel sorry for the Libyan people, but I think that military strikes at our expense are not the way to help them. What Libyans need to do is stay home, stop working and stop paying taxes, slowly starving their government out of money. Then they will be free.